I have climbed "The Sisters" (P. 10153 and 10045) west of Round Top twice already but only from the Saddle west of Round Top. If in the area or looking at atopo map, one can clearly see that the ridge is not only two, but depending on how you count, made up of 4-5 Sisters from the saddle west of Round Top all the way to the...

After an extraordinary long winter with more than average amounts of snow, the Sierra Nevada really lived up to it's name: there was and still is a lot of "Nevada" up in the Sierras and it'll take quite some time to melt it all. One ski resorts for example decided to stay open until August! (click). I was in the Donner Pass...

DG aka "Why Wait!?" and I wanted to go for a "hike" a long time already, but for one and the other reason it never happened yet. Today it did and it was a fun showshoe/back country ski outing on a wonderful spring day in the Sierras. We did the loop from Woods Lake to Round Top and back, like Donnie Darko and I did...

Round Top is on my wish list every season and today I was contemplating to start at Woods Lake, like I did here. However, the last winter storm brought more snow to the already very high snow pack in this area and I was afraid to not even be able to park at the turnout there. Instead I planned to start at the sno-park on Carson...

The start to the winter in California's Sierra Nevada was rather slow, but picked up in mid January and really kicked in in February. In the Donner Pass / Castle Peak area there were more than 7 meters of snowfall in February, with some daily totals of more than a meter. At this point the cumulative snow fall at Donner Pass is...

The previous week my wife and I spent some time at Loon Lake, a wonderful place in the boonies on the north side of the lake. I did a little stroll then and saw a peak at the east end of the lake which looked interesting and decided to try to climb it during this weeks outing. After looking at a map at home, I found out that this...

Mount Tallac is one of the classic and popular hikes in the Tahoe area. It is well known for the spectacular view of Fallen Leaf Lake, Lake Tahoe, two small Alpine Lakes and the Desolation Wilderness. The standard route from the trailhead is about a 10 mile round trip with an elevation gain of about 3300 ft. Don't expect to be...

Es mag etwas komisch tönen, dass der etwas in die Lenze gekommene 360 und gebürtige Wattwiler einen aktuellen Bericht mit solch einem Titel publiziert. Der Köbelisberg ist ein sehr beliebtes Wanderziel, sowohl von Wattwil, wie auch von Lichtensteig aus - zu allen Jahreszeiten. Von und nach Lichtensteig gibt es auch einen sehr...

A friend was visiting from the mountain-less part of this country and expressed the wish to accompany me on one of my Sierra Nevada hikes. Whenever someone asks me if they can come hiking with me I say yes, but hardly ever does it happen that someone actually comes along. My choice for this hike was Ralston Peak from Camp...

There are only a few peaks left around Lake Tahoe which I haven't stood on top yet. Monument - and East Peak are two of them. The main reason why I haven't been there was the fact that they are within a ski resort: Heavenly. Since there are several gondolas which take you almost to the top of these peaks, I wasn't too keen on...

This hike is more or less a repeat of Freel Peak and Jobs Sister with a slightly different way back down to the Horse Meadow. I start my hike shortly after 8 AM and walk along the well maintained trail to Armstrong Pass, there I take a right and follow the Tahoe Rim Trail to the saddle northwest of Freel Peak and then up to El...

A friend recently told me about Frog Lake near Castle Peak and how beautiful it is. After doing some www-research about the lake, I found out that it (and it's surroundings) is still privately owned by a family, but will be purchased by Truckee Donner Land Trust and made publicly available in 2020. To get a glimpse of this gem, I...

The general setup was more or less the same as last week, not too much time for an extended hike so something with little ramp-up time was needed. Since I also didn't have time to prepare any new hikes I just decided to go back to Pyramid Peak once again. In order to make sure I would reach my goal on this day, I didn't only start...

Today I had some commitments in the evening and had to be back early. Therefore, I chose a hike with a relatively short drive. I also wanted to check out my original plan from here, the south-southeast ridge to Pyramid Peak. Turns out my plans were a little too ambitious to reach Pyramid Peak in time, but I made it to P.8844 and...

Since I'm still employed in Switzerland, I get the Swiss Holidays off at work even though I live in California. This has advantages and disadvantages. One of advantages is that on those Swiss Holidays almost nobody has the day off in the US and therefore, it's hardly ever crowded, neither on the roads nor in the mountains. If you...

As you might have noticed by now, Round Top is one of my favorite goals in winter and summer. So far my starting point for this tour has always been Carson Pass. For back-country ski tours, the section from Carson Pass to Winnemucca Lake is somewhat sub-optimal. The main reason is that this part is rather flat with only little...

Whenever I drive to Carson pass from east during the winter, I see the nice east facing slopes of Red Lake - and Stevens Peak, which look very inviting for skiing. David Wonser praises Red Lake Peak's east face on his website as "some of the best corn skiing terrain in Carson Pass". And that's exactly what my plan was for the day....

Same setup as last week with the difference that I wanted to ski a little more. Almost the same start, just "the other" pull-out on Highway 431 at Incline Lake. My goal today was Relay Peak via the west ridge, ski down to Ginny Lake, skin up to Incline Peak and then back to the car via the same route as last week to Incline Lake....

After a very slow start to the winter 2017/18 with very little precipitation, the Sierra Nevada received a lot of snow in the last weeks to reach an almost average snow-pack by now. This finally gave me the chance to open the ski tour season. This tour had to be short and sweet for many reasons and was also meant to find out what...

What sounds like a politically incorrect statement is what I told my wife the other day: "Can you pick me up at the Negro Bar?" However, I didn't go out to have a drink in a bar, but asked her to pick me up at the "Negro Bar" State Park, after I walked there from home. "Negro Bar" is the site which was mined by African...